DOJ may indict Zimmerman on civil-rights charges

[deltasigma]

@Bricker

And if that document never materializes, you’ll concede error?

I’ll concede that you just fucked up.

[Martin_Hyde]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

It wasn’t woefully inadequate (though clearly it wasn’t strong.) A very weak case would have been dismissed at the conclusion of the state’s case, the state having failed to make a prima facie showing of guilt. People have been convicted (generally of lesser crimes) on much less evidence.

Probably, but I think what made the Zimmerman case so weak is while there was a lot of different pieces of evidence in total they painted an unclear, or at best conflicting picture. In many ways that is actually worse than just having scant evidence but motive and a few pieces of really strong evidence. The Zimmerman evidence as presented simply wasn’t enough for any impartial person to judge beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed a crime, and to be honest that was obvious to many people a long time ago.

[Martin_Hyde]

@deltasigma

I’ll concede that you just fucked up.

The NAACP has never prosecuted a crime in its long history, we have evidence that the Federal government has never prosecuted a crime in its long history in a situation like this under the sort of charges you/the NAACP are talking about. Finally, a former federal prosecutor who spent many years in deep immersion with prosecutions has said that there is no Federal case against Zimmerman, period.

So we have a totally unsubstantiated claim by the NAACP and you doing the equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and screaming versus both cites and outside experts saying you’re wrong. This a classic example of someone being unambiguously wrong on the internet, and I hope no one is foolish enough to go further down the rabbit hole with you now that it is 100% established that that is the case.

[Terr]

@YogSosoth

I think if they can find justifiable reason to indict and try Zimmerman with a reasonable belief that they will win, they should

http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/FBI-doubts-Trayvon-Martin-killing-racist-3703846.php

After interviewing nearly three dozen people in the George Zimmerman murder case, the FBI found no evidence that racial bias was a motivating factor in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, records released Thursday show.

Federal agents interviewed Zimmerman’s neighbors and co-workers, but none said Zimmerman had expressed racial animus at any time prior to the Feb. 26 shooting of Trayvon, a black teen, in a confrontation at a Sanford housing complex. As police investigated the case, the FBI opened a parallel probe to determine if Trayvon’s civil rights had been violated.

[deltasigma]

@Martin_Hyde

The NAACP has never prosecuted a crime in its long history, we have evidence that the Federal government has never prosecuted a crime in its long history in a situation like this under the sort of charges you/the NAACP are talking about. Finally, a former federal prosecutor who spent many years in deep immersion with prosecutions has said that there is no Federal case against Zimmerman, period.

So we have a totally unsubstantiated claim by the NAACP and you doing the equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and screaming versus both cites and outside experts saying you’re wrong. This a classic example of someone being unambiguously wrong on the internet, and I hope no one is foolish enough to go further down the rabbit hole with you now that it is 100% established that that is the case.

If you read carefully what I said, I never actually made any case one way or the other. So the rabbit hole is actually in your mind. (oh god, I just cracked myself up with that one. )

[Bricker]

@deltasigma

If you read carefully what I said, I never actually made any case one way or the other. So the rabbit hole is actually in your mind. (oh god, I just cracked myself up with that one. )

Was it a social experiment, to see how we’d react?

Or a joke! That’s it… A joke. I get jokes.

[deltasigma]

@Bricker

Was it a social experiment, to see how we’d react?

Or a joke! That’s it… A joke. I get jokes.

I have a response for this but I’d get a mod warning for excessive snark.

[Martin_Hyde]

If I was Martin’s parents I’d probably want to pursue civil charges against the HOA for this gated community. I could see an argument they are culpable for the behavior of someone acting as a form of volunteer security for them since it was known he did so. I’m not sure what the legalities are, but the upside is they actually can probably produce money whereas Zimmerman probably cannot.

I don’t think he’s got much, I know he had a few hundred thousand in donations but those are presumably long gone as they’ve been used to pay for his criminal defense.

[foolsguinea]

I posted this in another thread:

@foolsguinea

It is in fact the case that the USA has federal statutes for murder and manslaughter (see here), but simply declines to redundantly prosecute cases where a state has done so (The “Petite” policy).

Since Zimmerman was not guilty of murder or manslaughter under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, but would quite likely be guilty of manslaughter under federal law, there is no double jeopardy here. He was tried for homicide in Fla., but was not guilty under their particular SYG statute (Bricker calls it “hinky”). Their statute does not change the federal manslaughter statute, which does not keep burden of proof on the prosecution in a SYG defense, and indeed has no SYG defense.

It would be entirely proper and sane for the feds to prosecute any acquitted SYG defendants from Florida for federal manslaughter.

[del]I don’t see how it’s a civil rights case, though. Zimmerman wasn’t an officer of anything except in his own imagination, was he?[/del] Apparently hate crimes (as opposed to “I love you” crimes) are under “civil rights” law. OK, I get it now.

[John_Mace]

He didn’t use the SYG defense and wasn’t tried “under the SYG law”.

[Zakalwe]

@Bricker

I agree. The judge was hoping the jury would let her off the hook. As a matter of law, she should have dismissed second-degree murder at the close of the prosecution’s case.

I’m choosing this to reply to make sure I get your attention. This is a hijack (sorry) but something I’ve come up with that I’d love to get your professional opinion on:

It seems to me that if you charge Z with manslaughter (and only manslaughter), you get the conviction, but not as a lesser charge. Here’s my ‘reasoning’:

It’s human nature to consider a source tainted once proven wrong. So. DA says “Murder 2!!!” And you say, “Yeah, maybe, but there sure are some reasonable doubts about that.” And the DA (rhetorically) says “Well then manslaughter!” And you say, “Well shit. I had reasonable doubts about M2, I must have those same doubts about manslaughter. So, still not guilty. Sorry.”

So, lawyer Dopers (and specifically prosecutor/defender lawyer Dopers), any traction with my gut feel? Or did/do you find it better/worse to throw the kitchen sink and hope something sticks?

[Bricker]

@Zakalwe

I’m choosing this to reply to make sure I get your attention. This is a hijack (sorry) but something I’ve come up with that I’d love to get your professional opinion on:

It seems to me that if you charge Z with manslaughter (and only manslaughter), you get the conviction, but not as a lesser charge. Here’s my ‘reasoning’:

It’s human nature to consider a source tainted once proven wrong. So. DA says “Murder 2!!!” And you say, “Yeah, maybe, but there sure are some reasonable doubts about that.” And the DA (rhetorically) says “Well then manslaughter!” And you say, “Well shit. I had reasonable doubts about M2, I must have those same doubts about manslaughter. So, still not guilty. Sorry.”

So, lawyer Dopers (and specifically prosecutor/defender lawyer Dopers), any traction with my gut feel? Or did/do you find it better/worse to throw the kitchen sink and hope something sticks?

Kinda sorta.

I think it has to do with your reputation with the jury. The prosecution might well have succeeded if they had charged manslaughter right up front, and in their opening statement said, “The evidence will show that George Zimmerman committed second-degree murder. But if leniency, or any lingering doubt, causes you to question that serious verdict, you still have to agree that the evidence clearly shows he’s guilty of manslaughter.”

Instead, the prosecution spent their whole case-in-chief saying, “Trust me, this all adds up to second-degree murder,” and then, at the end, their closing statement switches gears…leading to just the sort of mental double-take on the jury you imagined above.

[Terr]

@Bricker

Kinda sorta.

I think it has to do with your reputation with the jury. The prosecution might well have succeeded if they had charged manslaughter right up front, and in their opening statement said, “The evidence will show that George Zimmerman committed second-degree murder. But if leniency, or any lingering doubt, causes you to question that serious verdict, you still have to agree that the evidence clearly shows he’s guilty of manslaughter.”

Instead, the prosecution spent their whole case-in-chief saying, “Trust me, this all adds up to second-degree murder,” and then, at the end, their closing statement switches gears…leading to just the sort of mental double-take on the jury you imagined above.

Apart from this, if the jury considered and decided that Zimmerman’s self-defense claim was not disproven by the prosecution beyond reasonable doubt, that self-defense applied to both the murder 2 charge and to the manslaughter charge, equally, so it didn’t matter in that respect which one was considered.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Bricker

Kinda sorta.

I think it has to do with your reputation with the jury. The prosecution might well have succeeded if they had charged manslaughter right up front, and in their opening statement said, “The evidence will show that George Zimmerman committed second-degree murder. But if leniency, or any lingering doubt, causes you to question that serious verdict, you still have to agree that the evidence clearly shows he’s guilty of manslaughter.”

In Florida that would be a mistrial. The prosecutor can’t allude to crimes not charged.

[Martin_Hyde]

@foolsguinea

I posted this in another thread:

There’s not really any chance DOJ prosecutes for anything other than a civil rights crime ala Rodney King or the Mississippi Burning cases or something. And the chance of that is basically none as well. The Feds don’t want to immediately spit on the idea, but the simple fact is they know there is nothing good that can come of it so they’re going to keep it open for awhile before it gets thrown out with the Friday trash once people aren’t paying attention because something else more compelling is going on.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

Even if they wanted to, murders don’t become federal crimes just because the state acquits and people are mad. Federal murder jurisdiction is strictly limited by statute (victim is a federal employee, murder occurs in a US territory or DC, the murder is solicited through the US mail, etc.)

[Bricker]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

In Florida that would be a mistrial. The prosecutor can’t allude to crimes not charged.

My blueprint for the prosecutor’s strategy includes charging both manslaughter and second-degree murder from the start, so there’s no alluding to an uncharged crime in my plan.

[Bricker]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

Even if they wanted to, murders don’t become federal crimes just because the state acquits and people are mad. Federal murder jurisdiction is strictly limited by statute (victim is a federal employee, murder occurs in a US territory or DC, the murder is solicited through the US mail, etc.)

…murder occurs on a rock with guano deposits…

[aceplace57]

This NBC article is on point. It doesn’t seem to fit the Zimmerman case, but the Feds may try to use it anyway.

U.S. News: Latest Breaking Stories, Video, and Photos on American Politics,...

If the government were to bring a criminal case, it would most likely invoke the four-year old federal hate crime statute named for Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, both of whom were killed in vicious bias attacks. Shepard was targeted in Wyoming because he was gay. Byrd was singled out in Texas because he was black.

Part of the federal law is a provision making it a crime to cause “bodily injury to any person … because of the actual or perceived race” of the victim. It’s that element of intent that makes prosecutions under the statute so difficult.

The Justice Department will take a fresh look at what federal investigators learned about the shooting and at the evidence gathered for the George Zimmerman trial. But proving intent is very difficult. The government has gotten convictions under the Hate Crimes law in cases where there has been strong evidence showing racial motivation. NBC’s Pete Williams reports.

“Usually when you have a successful prosecution, you have multiple statements made by the defendant about the victim’s race while the defendant is attacking, or you have a group of people that went out looking for someone of a particular race to attack,” Bagenstos said.

[Terr]

@aceplace57

This NBC article is on point. It doesn’t seem to fit the Zimmerman case, but the Feds may try to use it anyway.
U.S. News: Latest Breaking Stories, Video, and Photos on American Politics, Economy, and Society | NBC News

You know, I would hate for Zimmerman to go through this stuff again, but other than that I would love for the DOJ to go ahead, charge him under this, and get soundly defeated in court.